Surprising Science: Medical Proof that Doing Work You Love Could Save Your Life

07 May Surprising Science: Medical Proof that Doing Work You Love Could Save Your Life

“Natural forces within us are the true healers of disease.” – Hippocrates

The Health Benefits of Loving What You Do.

I believe doing work you love will change the world.

But a lot of people still spend their lives filled with stress, anxiety and despair about how they spend the majority of their working and waking hours. As many as 80% of the world lives this way (although I’d like to think our Revolution here is beginning to push that number down).

Yet despite the constant pain and frustration, we find reasons to push off change one more day. One day turns into a year, which turns into forever.

But as we’re about to see, there are serious risks in putting off the change you know you so badly need to make.

The biggest risk of all? Life.

Yes, there is real scientific and medical proof that doing work you don’t enjoy will actually shorten your lifespan.

So for those of you on the edge, or who know people on the edge, today I hope to offer a wake up call that trumps all others. But I’m not qualified to tell you about it. Instead I’ve brought in an expert and good friend who’s hard to deny.

Lissa Rankin, M.D. studied medicine for over twelve years and then spent another decade seeing patients in her clinical practice. Then frustration set in – she realized most of her patient work and prescriptions weren’t actually helping people. So she left it all, sold the second home and gave up a very profitable business to go on a quest to discover why some patients experience miraculous cures from seemingly incurable illnesses, while others remain sick even when they receive the best medical care. She scoured medical journals and data from some of the most reputable medical establishments in the world, including Stanford and Johns Hopkins.

What she found blew a lot of minds.

Diet and exercise, while important, were not at the top of the list.

What was? Things like time around close friends, laughter, the health of your marriage and wait for it… doing work that genuinely fulfills and excites you.

Lissa now devotes herself full-time, as a mind-body medicine physician, to her mission to heal our broken health care system, both by helping patients play a more active role in healing themselves and by training physicians how to facilitate, rather than resist, such mind-body healing. She is the founder of the Whole Health Medicine Institute, which includes guest faculty such as Martha Beck, Christiane Northrup, Bernie Siegel, and Larry Dossey. She also has two of the best TEDx Talks I’ve seen on health, medicine and the power of the body.

I believe in possibility.

I believe that in most cases ‘the impossible’ is a state of mind.

Lissa’s work puts proof to this belief.

In my eyes she is doing some of the most important work on the planet.

Lissa’s experience, friendship, support and proof that the impossible is not only possible, but often controllable, could not come at a more important time right now for me personally. I’m grateful to have her in my life.

Enter Lissa Rankin M.D.

You probably know that having a toxic job that stresses you out and sucks the soul out of you isn’t exactly good for you. As a physician who has experienced work stress myself, as well as witnessing it in my patients, it’s obvious to me that work stress is poisonous and can translate into physical symptoms. You know this already. Anyone who has ever gotten a migraine after a deal went bad or stiff shoulders after the boss criticized him can attest to that.

But did you realize that work stress can actually kill you?

In Japan, they even have a word for it – karoshi – which is defined as “death by overwork.” Karoshi usually happens to relatively young, otherwise healthy people who are burning the candle at both ends in a less-than-dreamy work environment.

The first case of karoshi was reported in 1969, when a worker died of a stroke at the age of 29. But it wasn’t until 1987 that the Japan Ministry of Labor began collecting statistics on karoshi. Since that time, Japanese officials estimate that approximately 10,000 cases of karoshi occur each year.

This should be big news! Some lawyers and scholars even claim that the number of karoshi deaths in Japan equals or exceeds the number of traffic accident fatalities each year. But when was the last time your doctor added “Alleviate work stress” to your preventive maintenance or treatment plan?

What Happens Physiologically When People Die of Karoshi?

Karoshi is not a single disease. It’s a constellation of what are believed to be stress-induced physiological changes that usually lead to either sudden cardiac death or stroke, most likely caused by repetitive triggering of the “fight-or-flight” stress response that activates the sympathetic nervous system, raises blood pressure and heart rate, and overstresses the cardiovascular system.

Just before dying, most karoshi victims complain of varying combinations of dizziness, nausea, severe headache and stomach ache. In 95% of karoshi cases, death occurs within 24 hours of the onset of severe symptoms, though milder symptoms sometimes precede the severe ones. (If you’re stressed at work, do any of these symptoms sound familiar to you? If so, listen up. That’s your body telling you your work could be harming your health.)

Death by Overwork in the United States

It’s not just the Japanese who are working themselves to death.

Although most of the data on karoshi comes from Japan, the International Labor Office released statistics showing that the United States far exceeds the Japanese when it comes to overwork. Our doctors and our government have yet to recognize karoshi as a distinct disease or award workman’s compensation benefits the way the Japanese do, and because we don’t track it, it’s hard to say how frequently work stress manifests as death in the United States. But you can bet it affects the health of many.

One study found that one in five Americans come to work, even though they were ill, injured, or seeing a doctor that day. The same sort of work obsession keeps about a third of employed Americans failing to use accrued vacation time. This failure to use vacation days has actually been proven to predispose to early death.

One study, published in Psychosomatic Medicine in 2000, looked at 12,000 men over nine years and found that those who failed to take annual vacations had a 21% higher risk of death from all causes, and they were 32% more likely to die of a heart attack. Yikes!

It’s not just early death that work stress can cause. Another recent study found that disenchanted, burned out employees developed heart disease at a 79% higher rate than those who liked their job.

And there are financial costs to all this burn out! The New York Times reports that health issues related to job stress costs the American economy $200 billion annually – roughly the economic cost of Hurricane Katrina. It is an epidemic that just might be affecting… you.

How Your Toxic Job Can Harm Your Body

You probably know that work stress isn’t good for you, and you probably know that if you hate your job, stress reduction would be a plus. But do you understand how work stress harms the body?

Here’s how it goes. Your boss yells at you when you did nothing wrong, and you get pissed. Or you’re on the floor of the stock market – or in front of a jury – screaming until you’re red in the face. Or you’re up all night, faced with the repetitive stress of performing a perfect surgery when you’re exhausted, like I did for over a decade. Or someone steals your idea and doesn’t give you credit. Or your job requires you to try to sell cigarettes – and when you do, you also sell out your integrity.

You keep quiet when you want to speak up. You lack the power to make the change you know needs to happen. You’re trying to please an office full of narcissists. Or whatever.

Sound The Alarm

It doesn’t matter what the stressor is. All that matters is that the amygdala in your lizard brain reads “THREAT!” and signals the alarm that lets your brain know you are in danger, probably because a tiger is chasing you. Your amygdala isn’t very smart. It doesn’t really listen to your intelligent forebrain and fails to realize that your boss isn’t actually a man-eating tiger. (Or maybe she is…)

Either way, your amygdala sounds the alarm and the “fight-or-flight” physiological stress response is triggered, flipping on your sympathetic nervous system, exposing every cell to harmful stress hormones like cortisol and epinephrine, elevating your heart rate and blood pressure, and worst of all – deactivating the body’s natural self-repair mechanisms, the ones that kill cancer cells, fight infections, repair broken proteins, slow aging, and help you live to be a hundred.

The Relaxation Response: The Solution…

Fortunately, your body has a natural counterbalance to the potentially poisonous stress response, which Dr. Herbert Benson famously named the relaxation response, which is also the title of his bestselling book from the 1970’s. The relaxation response shuts off the stress response, turns on the parasympathetic nervous system, and flips on the body’s self-repair mechanisms so the body can do what it does best – heal itself.

The Power of Living Your Legend

So if you think work stress might be putting your health at risk, what can you do?

Well, you’re already doing just what the doctor ordered by being a part of the Live Your Legend community, getting inspired about how to get out of any job that sucks out your soul and starting to engage in work you love.

As it turns out, the most effective way to optimize the health of your body is to reduce stress responses.

The average American has over 50 stress responses per day. But when you’re doing work you love, feeling a sense of mission and purpose, helping other people with the work you do, staying in alignment with your integrity, feeling a sense of personal power in an entrepreneurial business, working with people you admire, and expressing your creative gifts, you naturally experience fewer stress responses – and the body’s self-repair mechanisms have a chance to do their business.

But What If You Can’t Quit Your Soul-Sucking Job?

Still mired in the cubicle or married to the golden handcuffs? Don’t worry. You can start today – before you quit.

To prevent death by overwork, you’ll need to implement a two-fold strategy by reducing stress responses in the body, while simultaneously activating relaxation responses.

To Activate Relaxation Responses:

Meditate. And here’s some good news. According to Dr. Herbert Benson, author of The Relaxation Response, you don’t even have to close your eyes and sit down to meditate. He has proven scientifically that the body responds favorably when all you do is pick one word and repeat it while passively disregarding other thoughts. This means you can activate relaxation responses while running, driving, or grocery shopping. Cool!

Laugh. Even if nothing is funny, the act of laughing triggers relaxation responses. And you’ll feel so silly, you’ll probably laugh some more.

Play with animals.

Express yourself creatively. You don’t have to paint or play an instrument to get the health benefits of creative expression. Even setting a beautiful dinner table or gardening can relax your nervous system.

Get it on. Need I say more?

Dance. Even if you’re dancing by yourself to a Pandora playlist.

To Reduce Stress Responses at Work:

Set healthy boundaries. Skip the 12 hour days. Be willing to have a heart to heart with your boss, even if you are your own boss. No amount of job security or money is work dying young.

Take vacations. People who fail to use their vacation time are 32% more likely to die of a heart attack.

Stay in integrity with yourself. If you’re selling your soul for a paycheck, your body will suffer.

Do what you love. When you’re motivated by a sense of mission and purpose, your nervous system relaxes and your physiology responds positively.

In my book Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself, I walk you through the 6 Steps To Healing Yourself that include not only how to reduce stress responses, but very specific actions you can take to activate more relaxation responses – things like meditation, laughter, playing with animals, hanging out with friends, getting a massage, doing yoga, attending services as part of a spiritual community, giving to others, or hugging someone.

Ultimately, it’s all about the ratio between stress responses and relaxation responses in the body, so if you can’t reduce stress responses, you can still add relaxation responses – and my book will teach you how to do that.

The big question is…Is your work hurting you, or do you love what you do?

Scott

Karen

Love this one, I have seen her TEDX talk before and I really liked it. I really like seeing the science behind some of the things, like Tony said, that you are know are true. Sometime I have an easier time really believing things when I have some examples or some scientific studies to reinforce that belief.

Good timing! I was meditating this morning asking the universe to send me a doctor that could help me with my chronic illnesses. And this is the 3rd place I’ve seen her book today. Time to buy the book! Thanks for a great article!

You also might want to check out the book, “Getting Well Again” by Dr. O. Carl Simonton. It’s a very well-known book about how cancer patients have used their mind to heal their body via visualization techniques, virtual healing guides in their mind, meditation, etc. And of course the techniques described in the book can be applied to healing your body of any serious illness. Highly recommended!

Also, if you have silver amalgam fillings in your teeth, I HIGHLY suggest you have them removed by a biological dentist, and have them replaced with a dental restoration that is safe for your specific body, as they contain up to 50% mercury in them, which is the most toxic non-radioactive metal on the planet. You can find out which dental restoration materials are safe for your body via a bio compatibility test.

There was case study conducted that was based on the results of 60,000 patients (a HUGE sample size) that proves that the removal of your amalgam fillings can either cure or significantly better over 50 serious health issues.

A great book on this subject is “Whole-Body Dentistry” by Dr. Mark Breiner, a biological dentist who has proven time and time again that whatever is going on in the mouth can have a serious affect on the whole body.

hell yes!! every time i have gone back to an office job, I get sick! a sore throat, a cough, a cold… my stomach hurts. and I can’t stand it. I end up quitting because I know my body is telling me this isn’t the right place. I wish more people would listen! It’s not that the office is necessarily bad. But are you aligned with work you LOVE in your job? If not, you just may have to create it.. that’s why I love the entrepreneurial path.

Scott

That’s wild that you’d see such a direct response Janet. Glad you paid attention! It makes me happy to know more and more people are starting to listen. The best thing all of us can do is keep banging the drum 🙂

Scott, thanks for a great post – i love that there is now scientific proof showing we need work that fulfills us. your blog is a powerful rally and essential resource for people who want to be passionate about their work. i am leaving investment banking (mother of all soul-sucking jobs) soon to travel and pursue my passion; your uplifting words have offered tremendous encouragement that meaningful work is out there.

Scott

Absolute music to my ears Shu! Congrats on your transition. I’m glad our community could be at least a small part of it. I cannot wait to see what happens as a result of the change and the trip – that’s seriously the best! Nicely done.

Scott

Agreed. I loved her post on ZH. She is such a rockstar. Actually spent a half hour on the phone with her today talking through some medical things a close friend is going through and she was the most amazing breath of fresh air you could imagine. What a person – and even while in the heart of a book launch… Thanks for being you Lissa 🙂

As someone who suffers from Crohn’s, it is extremely important that I keep my stress level down. If I’m too stressed out, my disease acts up and it can put me out of commission for a LONG time. Not only can I not work, but I can barely function. The extra money I can get by doing the corporate, soul-sucking stressful job is not worth my health.

Thanks Scott and Lissa for the wonderful article. Any and all attention we can put on this is terrific. It’s definitely time for people to pay more attention to how they spend their time.

Also, I would like to say what a great thing meditation is. It does wonders for stress (and Crohn’s).

Cheers!

Scott

Could not agree more about meditation. I love my morning practice. Just knowing I can take the time to slow down and do nothing is a pretty empowering feeling. Thanks for sharing your story David and I’m glad to hear you’ve figured out the things that cause trouble – and that you’re consciously staying away from them!

As I’m watching someone close to me die of cancer, I’ve been studying this quite a bit. I also wrote a post on it a couple months ago.

All those negative thoughts and feelings send messages to every cell in our bodies, programming them how to live, mutate and die. There are so many ways of looking at this situation and they all come back to the same answer: do things that make you happy in order to live a long, happy life.

I’ve been creating more boundaries and learning to say no more in order to make this happen in my own life. We spend so much of our lives doing what we think we’re supposed to do (i.e. working ourselves literally into the ground) that we think everything will fall apart if we don’t. The funny thing is, things get better – much better – when we do what makes our hearts sing and forget about all the “should’s.” The less we worry about what others think the more we focus on what works for us, the better life becomes for everyone.

Thanks so much for bringing this message to the LYL community! It’s such an important one!

Scott

My hear it with you Paige. Someone very close to me was just diagnosed with something serious, and to be honest, I really don’t know what to do. But Lissa’s work and the reassurance from this community helps more than you all realize.

The crazy thing is that we think everything will fall apart if we don’t go a million miles an hour. But as it turns out, everything will fall apart if we do.

You simplified it perfectly: do things that make you happy in order to live a long, happy life.

What I’ve found to be tough when someone is diagnosed with something is that we can’t control the situation, their thinking or what they do. The person I know who has stage 4 cancer has strong beliefs in traditional, western medicine. They blindly follow whatever their doctor says without doing much, if any, of their own education. All the treatments they’ve been through have provided no benefit and they acknowledge that. But when we’ve proposed alternative ways of looking at the situation, they scoff at it because we’re not doctors.

I’ve done tons of research about various aspects of health and wellness over the past decade and have seen the results. The best I can do is offer what I’ve learned and personally experienced. It’s up to the receiver what they want to do with it.

Fortunately, people like Lissa who have the credibility of their prior professional experience (and licensing) are spreading the word that the old ways of looking at things have never really worked and there’s a new (actually very old) way that works.

Being the CFO of a healthcare organization, it’s very frustrating that the healthcare system doesn’t yet support (i.e. pay for) the alternative methods that really work. Times are changing though. Healthcare is one of the slowest systems to change but the baby steps are there.

The problem is that the alternative methods that work are based in the kinds of things that Lissa’s work is based in – lifestyle change. The big healthcare and pharma companies haven’t yet figured out how to cash in on this so they perpetuate the system that promotes drugs and unnecessary medical procedures.

The more messages like Lissa’s are brought to the forefront, the more the old system will break down. While each of us may not seem too significant as we deliver our messages in this area, as an increasingly larger group, we’re making a big impact.

Scott

Thank you for fighting the good fight with us Paige. Reading your response and all you’re doing makes me really happy. If enough people start paying attention, it becomes impossible to ignore. Well done!

Dijana

Hi Scott!
Recently I discovered (and subscribed, of course!) your website, which I think is really remarkable. I enjoy reading it every day and it helps me through my personal changes at the moment. Probably like everyone else here, I want to start doing what is really important to me, what I love and am good at. Fortunately, I know what it is – unfortunately, I have soul-sucking full time day job which makes very hard doing other stuff properly. But it will change, I know it!

I saw your picture in a boat somewhere on Croatian seashore and since I’m from Croatia, I was wondering which islands and cities you visited and did you like them? I hope you were in Dubrovnik!Did you see our capital, Zagreb? Region of Istra also has beautiful little towns,great wine and even better food. You should come and see it sometimes.
Thanks for the inspiration!

Scott

Welcome to the family Dijana! And to the adventure :). You are going to feel right at home here. I love that you already know what you want to be doing. That’s a huge first step and often that’s enough to create the motivation to make a change. Please share your plan with us. We’re here to help however we can.

And my wife and I LOVE your country. We talk about it non stop and it’s been nearly three years since we were there. We actually had plans to go out there again this summer but a few things fell through. We will be back soon for sure though. The people, the food, the views. It was seriously one of our favorite places ever. That boat pic was off the coast of Hvar. We started in Dubrovnik and rented a car up through Split, Primosten, Opatija and ending in Zagrab with a few other fun stops along the way like Krka park and Mjet. Cannot wait to go back. I wrote a post about it here: https://liveyourlegend.net/8-life-practices-worth-taking-home-from-croatia/

So glad to have you a part of what we’re building. This is going to be so much fun!

Dijana

I am very glad that you liked Croatia that much! And that you had luck to meet some good people 🙂 You see, Croatia is wonderful for a vacation, but no so much for everyday life. Today, the country is in a very bad place and there are slim to none opportunities for (young) people. There are no jobs and all people say is “Be lucky if you have a job!” But “having some job” is not enough for me to be happy. On top of that, a huge amount of energy is spent on negativity, which unfortunately is our reality but media coverage makes it even worse. But, enough with the bad stuff! 🙂

My plan…huh! Well, I’m finally going back to my profession and passion at the same time, which is music. I am professionally trained pianist, but since I could not get a job in music, I had to (and still do) accept 9-5 office job. Painful thing to do for every human being, but for an artist that has been trained to play music…? You can only imagine. The thing is, our country does not have music market of any kind, it is simply non-existant. All professional musicians have to teach in schools or work outside of their profession. But now there are no vacancies whatsoever. Since pedagogy is not my thing and I simply want to play, I have a problem 🙂

Now fastfoward to the present. Me and my friend from music conservatory recently started a piano duo (that is a form of chamber music where two people play one piano, it’s very fun and very difficult at the same time) and now we’re stuck in the phase 2 – to get paid for playing 🙂

It’s not my intention to change your impression of Croatia, but what happened is when we spoke to different cities representatives and told them we want to play for free, almost all of them said “Um, but we don’t need that”! One of them even went so far to say: “I don’t understand why are you doing this.” Can you imagine that happening in your country? And now we’re sending dozens of emails every week, country by country, in hope someone will want us to come. Some of them did not even respond to our emails. I just don’t get it. And we even don’t want their money, since concerts will be paid by one Croatian foundation (we’re about to apply for grant but we need invitation letters first). We just want a space to play and audience to play for, and of course visibility to build a track record.

So, that’s my story so far. We’ll see how it goes. The important thing is that both my friend and I are on the same page and are equally passionate about this. That has to count for something, right? 🙂
Greetings,
Dijana

Just this morning I read Lisa Rankin’s guest post on Zenhabits and now, in the evening I see another one by her on LYL, my top 2 most visited sites. I am also reading ‘Emotional Intelligence’ by David Goleman, in which he talks about how the amygdala hijacks the nervous system and triggers the ‘fight-or-flight’ response, same as in the posts. I guess I don’t need Urim & Thummim to read the omens!

Didn’t need scientific evidence to prove this one but it’s great to have it. As someone who has suffered various ‘complaints’ that doctors couldn’t find any ‘evidence’ of, I’ve experienced the amazing healing power of getting in line with your joy/bliss/purpose and the affect it can have on you.
Lissa makes a great point in her Ted Talk that the medical establishment does not own healing or have all the answers. Often, it’s up to us to find our own.

Great post Scott! I actually quit my corporate job in January after experiencing many health issues that were all stress related from my job. Live Your Legend, the Connect with Anyone Course, and reading 100 Startup were huge inspirations for me in taking the leap to find true happiness in the work I do. I started a romantic event planning business a few months before I left and have been planning dates, getaways, and marriage proposals for couples ever since. No more pointless meetings, corporate acquisitions that don’t matter, or clients yelling at me for things out of my control. Not to say that starting the business has been easy, any founder would call me a liar for saying it was, but I am pouring blood, sweat, and tears into something I truly believe in. So worth it!

Now, 5 months later many of those health issues have healed and I feel like a huge weight is off of my shoulders. And I now see many of my peers from that job fleeing to escape the soul sucking stress and seek out happiness and fulfillment of their own. I am so happy they have seen the light too. 🙂

[…] The core theme is that the root cause of most all sickness is stress. And as it turns out, two of the stressors that top the charts are not having a community that genuinely supports you and hating your job. That’s why she wrote a guest post for us a few weeks ago titled Surprising Science: Medical Proof that Doing Work You Love Could Save Your Life. […]

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[…] The core theme is that the root cause of most all sickness is stress. And as it turns out, two of the stressors that top the charts are not having a community that genuinely supports you and hating your job. That’s why she wrote a guest post for us a few weeks ago titled Surprising Science: Medical Proof that Doing Work You Love Could Save Your Life. […]